Currently, land transportation of automobiles takes two forms. Most commonly, rail cars designed to haul automobiles pick up the automobiles at the manufacturer's dock. The automobiles are then delivered to a hub. At the hub, they are unloaded from the rail cars and loaded onto specialized automobile-hauling trucks, which then make the final delivery to the automobile dealership. The other common way of hauling automobiles is to utilize specialized automobile-hauling trucks and trailers from the manufacturer directly to the dealer.
The trailers utilized to haul automobiles must meet special engineering and other requirements. These requirements are very different from the design requirements for highway vehicles which are designed to transport general freight. Consequently, two different types of vehicles have been developed for these two purposes, and neither type of vehicle is adapted to economically carry both kinds of loads. While operators of the general type of freight-carrying types of trucks or trailers endeavor and generally are able to arrange for payloads both going and coming on a particular trip, the automobile-carrying vehicles have not been able to do this. Instead, the car carriers often go out loaded and are obliged to return empty.
Consequently, auto-hauling trucking companies have high costs because of their high "deadhead" and low equipment utilization. Their trailers cannot be used for other types of freight. They incur a high percentage of empty to loaded miles because of their limited shipper base. Their freight rate must reflect those extra empty miles. Auto-hauling trucking companies experience a high deadhead ratio compared to other truckload carriers.
The specialized expensive equipment required by auto-hauling trucking companies also increases their costs and ultimately their freight rate. Automobile hauling trailers are complex and expensive to maintain. The tractors are specially designed with ramps. The tractors also use special fuel tanks, special towing hooks, hydraulic pumps, and other non-standard equipment. The auto hauling trailer's initial purchase price is 2 to 3 times higher than conventional vans.
Another problem with automobile-hauling tractors and trailers is their lack of protection from the elements. Due to the open design of automobile-hauling semi tractors and trailers, the automobiles they haul are not protected from vandalism, theft or accidental damage such as rock chips.
With the rail transportation method, rail cars are utilized which are designed especially for the purpose of hauling automobiles. These special rail cars are either open or shielded from vandalism, but are almost never totally enclosed. Because most general freight needs to be kept dry and isolated from the elements, the railroad cars used to haul automobiles on the front haul cannot be used on the return or backhaul trip to haul other freight, and thus they are rather unproductive. Moreover, even if automobile-hauling railroad cars were made waterproof, they would be difficult to utilize because the space provided is typically not a standardized size, and this presents problems when unloading and loading.
The cost of maintaining hub yards and the equipment to operate them is significant. Vandalism and theft regularly occur at hub yards. Automobiles must be unloaded from the rail cars at the hub yards, then reloaded into the specialized auto-hauling tractors and trailers. This process is slow, labor intensive, leads to handling damage, and is costly. The length of time in transit can be several weeks. Since the number and the value of the vehicles in transit is tremendous, this time delay also results in a substantial loss of operating profits for the automobile manufacturer.
The concept of semi trailers for carrying both general freight and automobiles is not new. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,668,734 and 2,636,772 disclose such trailers. However, the trailer designs described in these patents tend to compromise the payload capacity because of a decrease in the amount of interior width available and because of the significant weight of the design's components. In addition, these designs are relatively complicated, costly and require a relatively significant level of operator skill.
The present invention addresses these and other problems with currently-available trucks and trailers.